Hey Old One: After Action Report?

[Wulf Ratbane]

Horror Check
This only came up once, and I was sorely disappointed not to get to experience the 'Fight or Flight' variant, which I think is one of the coolest things in GT. All but one person made their save, but I'm not sure how much of that was almost unheard-of good rolling on our part.

Both of you guys made the same comment-- Why wasn't Fight or Flight used?

The GM should present the Fight or Flight option before any other checks are made; that's kinda the point.

Or did the GM just choose not to use it?


Wulf

 

[AIM-54]

Both of you guys made the same comment-- Why wasn't Fight or Flight used?

The GM should present the Fight or Flight option before any other checks are made; that's kinda the point.

Or did the GM just choose not to use it?


Wulf

Whoops, my bad...I seem to have skipped over that part in my discussion...hence the exact same comment

I believe it was used once, but only one character failed their check and ran. I think that was the only situation where it was warranted (what with a horde of undead emerging from a pond...THE POND OF DOOM! as it turned out) in that game, but because of a surprising stint of high rolling all around, it didn't have too much of an effect. I think it's an interesting concept, but there wasn't enough of it really to have a well-rounded opinion of the mechanic.

But I'm also not clear on what it says about when such checks should be made, not having the book and all. To me, it sounds like something that might be more appropriate in some campaigns over others, but again, I'd need to see it in play more to develop a really valid opinion on it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Both of you guys made the same comment-- Why wasn't Fight or Flight used?

The GM should present the Fight or Flight option before any other checks are made; that's kinda the point.

Or did the GM just choose not to use it?


Wulf

I guess Old One would have to answer that, but it wasn't a horror oriented game, so maybe he figured it wasn't appropriate. The situation, now that I think back, didn't really offer us a 'retreat and regroup' location, so we probably would have stayed and fought, anyway.

Unlike AIM-54, I actually prefer class-oriented systems over classless ones. I've had too many games devolve into a munchkiny min-maxing of perks/drawbacks where no one ever took anything that wasn't considered 'the best'. I really disliked the 'generic classes' when I saw them in D20 Modern (which I continue to dislike), and they were almost enough to make me pass on GT. Fortunately, I'm rational enough to understand that doing a generic grim and gritty rule book kinda required it I think, though, that if I were to run a GT campaign in a specific setting, I'd twiddle with the classes a bit to make my own (eg an Archeologist that combines levels of Smart with levels of Fast with a couple other things thrown in). (And, damn you, 'Slavelords of Cydonia' has given me this Barsoom vibe that is making me reconsider my quitting DM'ing!)

I don't have a beef with Action Points -- I've been using the mechanic since Star Wars d6 in college back in the 80s. I just prefer them to feel a little more 'special'. Plus, as a GM, an abundance of them makes gauging encounters difficult. I've had players hit some bad die rolls in an encounter that was intended to be a warmup, and have them blow all their action points. Then they hit the BBEG and have none, and he ends up being a lot tougher than I intended. If you keep them rare, the players are more likely to save them for life-or-death emergencies.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

AIM-54 --

The 'fight or flight' rule basically has everyone decide in secret whether they are going to stay and fight (and risk failing the horror check catastrophically) or run (basically intentionally failing the check in the most forgiving way) and then get to regroup later.

It has this absolutely delightful possibility of watching 1 person stay behind while the rest flee that makes my inner RBDM giggle like a school-girl.

 

[Old One]

Well...

Both of you guys made the same comment-- Why wasn't Fight or Flight used?

The GM should present the Fight or Flight option before any other checks are made; that's kinda the point.

Or did the GM just choose not to use it?


Wulf

The real answer is that I forgot to call for "Flight or Fight" in the heat of the moment :\!

I had an annotation for it on the encounter 4" x 6", I just missed it! That said, as Rodrigo noted...there was really any place to go. The PCs were passing through "gates" to small, enclosed areas and it would have been difficult for them to flee.

One of the things I realized afterwards was that the group, as a whole, had much higher than average CHA scores. In a more typical party, where CHA is often a dump stat for fighter types, the results would have been much different.

As it was, the PC that did fail was one of the better fighters and he got pinned against a bunch of thorn bushes by a tangle of zombies while frightened. In retrospect, I should have had the zombies grapple the PCs, since my "to hit" rolls in this encounter where nothing short of atrocious !

~ OO

 

[Old One]

My Thoughts...

Thanks to AIM-54 and Rodrigo for chiming in...

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

Scenario Design

The scenario was designed around 6 7th-level PCs and set in pseudo-historical Britain in 501 AD. The Romano-British warlord, Artorius, and a small band of trusted retainers have traveled to the mist-shrouded Isle of Mons to retrieve some ancient artifact(s) to help them turn the tide against the Saxon horde. PC line-up was:

Artorius (Strong 1/Charismatic 5/Fast 1) - Party Leader
Leudonus (Strong 7) - Gallic Adventurer from the Continent
Othic (Strong 1/Tough 6) - Renegade Saxon warrior and Artorius's shield-bearer
Bronwyn (Smart 5/Fast 2) - Trusted agent/spy of Artorius
Cai (Tough 5/Smart 2) - Master Huntsman of Artorius
Brother Temerius (Smart 1/Dedicated 6) - Christian priest from Constantinople and only spell-caster in the party

I had 4 mini-quests prepared, plus a climactic battle against the Saxon horde. The 4 mini-quests where: (1) Encounter with a single, very tough creature that could be side-stepped with negotiation; (2) Encounter with an undead druid and his zombie menions; (3) Puzzle encounter where the PCs would re-assemble a statue while being tormented by sprites; and (4) The trap-filled resting place of the Holy Grail and shade of Joseph of Arimetha.

As it happened, we only got through 1 & 2 and had to "hand wave" much of the final battle due to time constraints !

From a design standpoint, GT makes prepping encounters a breeze! The CR to EL and EL to CR conversion mechanism is a GM's dream and almost worth the price of admission by itself. I simply decided how hard I wanted to make each encounter, used the charts provided and went "CR shopping". I made each encounter moderate-to-hard, but also gave the PCs a mechanism to reset hps and ability point loss between encounters (although action points did not reset).

Combat

I really like the "Fewer Dead Heroes" variant, using armor as damage conversion to non-lethal damage. This would be particularly important in a setting with no or very limited supernatural healing and makes armor very important. If I was using GT as an on-going campaign rule set (which I plan to do in the future), I might house rule the class defensive bonus by capping it at the DEX bonus worn, then allow a feat to exceed the cap.

Running the combats was fairly smooth. The first encounter included a big firbolg giant with good armor, reach and the "awesome blow" feat. Watching the PC fly through the air like heroic golf balls was kind of fun. Massive Damage Threshold (MDT) worked well...we had one PC (with one of the lower MDTs) get squashed and fail the check. Fortunately, the blow knocked her out of threat range, so the pious Brother Temerius was able to save her. I used the 1-skull version of MDT (CON + armor bonus + shield bonus) to be more forgiving.

The undead druid/zombie encounter did not go as well as I would have liked (from a DM stand-point). I forgot to use the "Fight or Flight" option as the zombies emerged from the Pond of Doom and I should have had the zombies (who outnumbered the PCs 3-to-1 in the immediate area - 1 PC ran off to engage the druid and one failed his horror check) grapple instead of flail around ineffectually. The best part of the encounter (and funniest of the entire session) was nearly having half the party drown trying to retrieve a bronze dagger from the pond! Rolling natural 1s on swim checks and having the GM inflict critical failures with action points is fun! Fun for the GM, that is!

Magic

I echo most of the points Rodrigo made. l would love to see a GT Magic Book, or some creator guidelines with 3-skulls for the magic system. As far as design goes, I basically provided a utility spell and a healing spell for spell levels 0 and 1 (Light,Cure Minor Wounds, Bless and Cure Light Wounds), a utility spell at level 2 (Bull's Strength) and a 6th level utility spell designed for use in the final encounter (Wind Walk).

Brother Temerius was handicapped a bit in that he only had the Magical Adept talent, without any Improved Caster talents. I purposefully did this to gauge how difficult casting even minor spells would be and how hard it would be to hit the DC for higher level spells. As noted above, he basically had a 50% chance of failure on 0, 1st and 2nd level spells.

Unfortunately, the spell burn dice where not kind to him, so he ended up burning through ~ half his STR in the 2 mini-quests we completed, IIRC. Since I had a "reset" mechanism between quests, this wasn't as debilitating as it would be in a normal campaign. As discussed in another thread, if I was using the GT rule set in a more "traditional" fantasy setting, I might use a "1-skull option" to allow quicker spell burn recovery (maybe 1/hour or even prime stat bonus/hour).

Action Points

Boy, Howdy...did we use these! As others have noted, AP use was high for two reasons: (1) One-shot event and (2) LOTS of natural 1s rolled !

In virtually every instance, I awarded action points for failures and flubs...but that is because I am a meany ! This led, literally, to half the party almost drowning the the Pool of Doom. If I was running a regular campaign, I might be a bit more circumspect about awarding the APs to confirm critacal hits and critical skill failures against the PCs...but then again, maybe not.

I actually did expand the AP usage a bit, based on some things I do in my home brew and ideas I have picked up other places. They include:

• 1 AP to add an extra 1d6 of damage on a successful hit
• 1 AP to activate a "Heroic Surge" if you roll a natural 20 on your initiative die. This can only be used in conjunction with your first action.
• Try something nutty. Come up with a creative or hare-brained idea? Ask the GM...if he says OK, spend an AP and go forth!
• Spend 2 APs to activate a "Heroic Surge"
• Spend 2 APs for a re-roll
• Spend 2 APs to add 1d6 to another player's d20 roll (lend them your grace/luck) or subract 1d6 from a DM's d20 roll

Closing Thoughts

After having used the GT rule set "in action", I like it even more. Scenario design, creature design and adventure awards are all laid out logically and make it very easy for a GM to design appropriate encounters. I have never been a huge fan of Prestige Classes...and the basic classes/skills/feats/talents interplay pretty much obviates the need for them if you don't want to use them. The design flexibility for characters is enormous, although there are always trade-offs, especially when it comes to those very valuable Advanced Talents.

After 23 years of playing D&D, the "paradigm shift" needed to move to the spell-casting system is considerable. A GT caster, even at high levels with loads of advanced talents and feats, will not measure up to even a mid-level traditional caster. That said, the elegance and the utility of being able, as a GM, to have complete control over the access and proliferation of magic in the campaign is very attractive for control freaks like me !

I would certainly like to see an expansion of the magic system, with more options and the ability to scale along a 3-skull scale like many other variants.

As I have stated in numerous other threads, if GT had been around when I started my Faded Glory campaign, I would have made it the basis for the rule set.

~ Old One

 

[Rel]

Ok, having read this thread I understand better now. I saw in Old One's Story Hour thread that he would probably use Grim for his next campaign and I thought he meant Grimm. I've seen Grimm played at the NC Game Days and it always involved the players building silly things with Play-Doh and Tinker Toys (I'm not knocking this - it looked like tremendous fun). I was trying to picture my favorite RBDM, Old One, saying, "Ok, 2,300 Sythian Horse Archers shoot at you. Build an umbrella out of Legos. QUICK!"

I've never seen Grim played but it certainly sounds interesting and I agree that it would have been a much better system for our Faded Glory campaigns.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The CR to EL and EL to CR conversion mechanism is a GM's dream and almost worth the price of admission by itself

I'd heard good things about that. I'll have to try check it out in more depth.

The first encounter included a big firbolg giant with good armor, reach and the "awesome blow" feat.

Wondered where that mechanic came from. I like it a lot. It adds a nice cinematic feel to the fight, and it makes the battlefield a little less static.

The trap-filled resting place of the Holy Grail and shade of Joseph of Arimetha.

Damn. I was betting on it being in the 'Water' portal.

The best part of the encounter (and funniest of the entire session) was nearly having half the party drown trying to retrieve a bronze dagger from the pond!

Too bad this was a one-shot -- having the party have to make 'Fight or Flight' checks the next time they were confronted with a small, harmless body of shallow water would have been hysterical.

Regarding the casting, I like the 'take more time' rule, but I think I would tweak it a little. Going from a standard to a full round action isn't a big deal most of the time, but going from a full round to 1 minute is. Awarding the same bonus for both seems a little off. It also seems to benefit non-combat spells more. which might be by design.

 

[Henry]

...I thought he meant Grimm. I've seen Grimm played at the NC Game Days and it always involved the players building silly things with Play-Doh and Tinker Toys (I'm not knocking this - it looked like tremendous fun). I was trying to picture my favorite RBDM, Old One, saying, "Ok, 2,300 Sythian Horse Archers shoot at you. Build an umbrella out of Legos. QUICK!"

It may help to know the actual name is "Grim Tales." That may keep it a little straighter. I keep wanting to look at this myself, but it looks like it might be X-mas or so before I do; I may get it as a sinful X-mas gift for myself. That, and the fact that I'll probably never play it, outside of a North Carolina Game Day because of the vast number of other games my group has backed up.

 

[Rel]

It may help to know the actual name is "Grim Tales." That may keep it a little straighter.

I caught the full name. But I was under the impression that "Grimm" was actually "Grimm Tales" (as in "Grimm Fairy Tales") and that folks were just shortening it.

This is almost as much fun as the Arcana Unearthed/Unearthed Arcana confusion, isn't it?